Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC)
In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a Digital signal (signal processing) | digital signal. An ADC may also provide an isolated measurement such as an electronic device that converts an input analog voltage or Electric current | current to a digital number representing the magnitude of the voltage or current. Typically the digital output is a two's complement binary number that is proportional to the input, but there are other possibilities.
There are several ADC hardware architecture | architectures. Due to the complexity and the need for precisely matched electronic component | components, all but the most specialized ADCs are implemented as integrated circuits (ICs). These typically take the form of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal integrated circuit chips that integrate both Analogue electronics | analog and digital circuits.
A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) performs the reverse function; it converts a digital signal into an analog signal.